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Ken Saro-Wiwa

News about Ken Saro-Wiwa, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. More

Updated: May 22, 2009

Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of Nigeria's leading environmentalists and authors, was executed by Nigeria's former military regime in November 1995, provoking international protests and calls for punitive measures against Nigeria.

Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a popular author, playwright and television producer, had been one of the Nigerian government's most articulate and determined critics. He had built a campaign against environmental damage by oil companies and for a fairer share of Nigeria's immense oil wealth for the regions where it is produced.

Mr. Saro-Wiwa's organization, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, grew to become the largest political organization in the 350-square-mile homeland of the Ogoni. This ethnic group, to which he belonged, includes 500,000 people who live in the oil-rich but desperately poor swamplands of Delta State.

The group began to demonstrate for an end oil spillages, gas flarings and the destruction of the mangroves to make way for Shell pipelines. They also demanded a share of the revenues from the oil pumped from their land. In response, Nigerian troops mounted a kind of scorched-earth campaign against the Ogoni, burning villages and committing murders and rapes, international human rights groups say.

Shell, Nigeria's largest oil producing company, had acknowledged frequent spills but had said the Ogoni movement exaggerated their impact.

Mr. Saro-Wiwa was arrested in 1994 and put on trial before a special military court along with other Ogoni advocates, on charges that human rights groups and Western governments said were trumped up. Despite international pressure, Shell initially refused to intervene, saying at the time, "the company does not get involved in politics."

The execution of Mr. Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of the Ogoni tribe led to fierce protests against Shell, which was already under heavy criticism from environmentalists for its record in the Niger Delta. The event, which ignited worldwide condemnation of Nigeria, prompted changes in Shell's approach to community relations in Nigeria and elsewhere.

Mr. Saro-Wiwa's body was burned with acid and thrown in an unmarked grave.

A lawsuit was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York law firm specializing in human rights, on behalf of Mr. Saro-Wiwa's son and other plaintiffs who fled Nigeria's military regime and did not trust they could sue Shell in Nigerian courts even after civilian rule returned in 1999.

On May 27, 2009, a trial in federal court in New York is expected to examine allegations that Shell sought the aid of the former Nigerian regime in silencing Mr. Saro-Wiwa, in addition to paying soldiers who carried out human rights abuses in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta where it operated. Shell strongly denies the charges.

Born in Bori, Nigeria, Mr. Saro-Wiwa, was the son of J. B. Saro-Wiwa, a businessman, and his wife, Widu, a farmer. He earned a scholarship to the University of Ibadan, near the capital of Lagos. As a schoolboy, he wrote anonymous letters to newspapers commenting on local politics. During the Biafran civil war in the late 1960s, he worked as an administrator for the oil depot at Bonny Island. Later he was removed from the post of regional commissioner for education in the Rivers State cabinet after he expressed strong opinions about autonomy for the Ogoni.

Mr. Saro-Wiwa, a prolific writer of both adult and children's literature, also wrote and produced numerous episodes for a Nigerian soap opera. His highly praised "Sozaboy" (vernacular for "soldier boy") was set amid the Biafran conflict, becoming an anti-war statement as well as a coming-of-age tale of a young village boy who is pressured to become a soldier. Mr. Saro-Wiwa drew on his personal memories of that time. The novel preceded his later political activism. Biafra, which unsuccessfuly tried to secede, contained most of the country's oil reserves.